Well folks, great to see you this morning. I hope you are well. Let me encourage you to have Romans chapter 6 open up in front of you as we journey through this morning.
If you are here today and you are wondering what this Christian business is all about, what it means to be a Christian,
then let me encourage you to really listen up over the next 25 minutes or so,
because this passage is going to take us right to the heart of what it means to be a Christian,
the transformation that's happened in the life of the Christian.
And if you are a follower of Jesus, then again I encourage you to listen up,
because this passage is going to help us remember our identity in Jesus Christ.
And it's been my prayer all week that the truth of this would impact our lives,
it would stir our affection for the Lord Jesus, and it would stir us to live lives of holy obedience to him, out of love for him.
So come with me to Romans chapter 6.
And to kick us off, I'm going to put somebody on the screen.
And I wonder, and this is one for a certain generation, okay, let me just find my thing.
Here he is.
Can anyone tell me who this is on the screen?
Come on, somebody must know the answer to this.
Come on, who's this?
It's not Gloria Gaynor?
So this is Gladys Knight.
I thought that might go down better than this.
This is Gladys Knight.
She is known as the Empress of Soul.
And in 1989 she released one of her most famous songs, and maybe this will begin to kick in with people,
one of her most famous songs, and it's called A License to Kill.
Anyone heard of A License to Kill?
If we're on the ball, you'll know that that was the soundtrack, that was the theme song to the Bond film that was released that year
with the same title starring Timothy Dalton.
Okay, most underrated Bond, if you ask me, but there's Timothy Dalton.
So she's singing this song, A License to Kill, and it was a song that captured something about who James Bond is.
He's the man who prefers his martini shaken, not stirred.
We learn that as you watch the Bond films.
He's the guy that loves driving a vintage Aston Martin complete with gizmos and gadgets.
That's James Bond.
And here we got something more about who he is in this song.
Because as well as being those things, he's the man who has a license to kill.
So he works for the Secret Service, and he has this special dispensation to kill people.
He's free to kill.
And all the while he's free to kill knowing that he's covered.
He's got his license, he's covered.
And it's worth having 007 in your mind as we journey through today.
Because as we hit chapter 6, what we need to understand is that Paul,
remember off the back of chapter 5, he's written that we are saved, we are right with God,
not because of what we do, but rather because of God's grace to us shown in Jesus Christ.
We are justified because of Christ before God.
That's what we were singing just earlier.
Grace is free.
It's the truth.
Last week we thought that we should love the Scottish people because it's free.
And Paul, having off the back of chapter 5, laid this out in glorious technicolor.
He's anticipating a question that should be in the mind of his readers.
And I wonder if it's a question that maybe you had in your mind as we finished chapter 5 last week.
Or maybe it's a question that as we go through this now, as we unpack this a little,
you say to yourself, do you know what, I hadn't thought about it until now,
but now that you mention it, I've always wondered how that works.
And you'll see Paul pitch the question at verse 1 of this chapter,
and it goes something like this.
If we are saved by grace, right, free grace, we've done nothing to deserve it,
not because of us, because of Jesus.
If we are saved by grace, does that mean that as Christians now,
we're a bit like James Bond, we're in the same category as him?
Not that we have a license to kill, but now, because of God's grace,
do we now have a license to sin?
Are we, because of God's grace to us, do we now have that freedom to do what we want,
all the while knowing that we are covered by God's grace?
That might seem a silly question.
Am I free to do what I want?
That might seem a silly question.
But let me just say this.
If you fully understood the impact of chapter 5,
if you understood in your mind that we are saved by grace,
then this question is a perfectly logical question to ask.
And let me just say, if you've found yourself explaining this to your friend,
to your colleague, your family member, explaining grace,
and people come back with these kind of questions,
then let me encourage you that you've explained it right.
You've explained it right.
But think about this.
Does that seem a silly conclusion?
Well, it doesn't at all.
Because people will be asking,
does it really matter then how I live in light of God's grace?
Does it matter?
I mean, can I live however I want,
then at the last minute can I go rummaging around in my pockets,
looking for my wallet, thinking,
there's my Tesco Club card,
there's my Boots Advantage card,
there's my Nando's loyalty card,
there's my NHS donor card.
Oh, where I found it!
Aha, there's my grace card.
Right?
There's my grace card.
I'm so glad I took that out back in the day.
Boy, am I glad.
And before God, when he judges the world,
we play the grace card.
And we say, I think you'll find that entitles me to get to heaven.
Forget how I've lived.
I've got the grace card.
Is that how we should respond to grace?
Or you could look at another way.
If you've seen this guy,
you know about this guy on the screen.
Probably not his best picture,
but could you think about it the way that famous Russian monk Rasputin looked at it?
How he responded to grace?
Because he taught his followers
that the more we sin,
the more we show to the world our need of grace and forgiveness.
And actually, we're doing God a massive favour when we sin
and do so living recklessly
because we make God's grace and forgiveness
look so much more glorious in the eyes of the watching world.
And if you know that Boney M song that goes with Rasputin,
or if you know anything about his life,
you know that might explain his
let's go beg or go home,
let's go out and let's party like it's 1989 kind of lifestyle, right?
And let me just suggest to you that
given that, your boy might have got it wrong.
Is that what it means to live under grace?
Is that what it means?
I don't know about you,
but as I've tried to explain grace to my friends,
I've been met with those kind of questions
and those kind of reactions.
You know,
I remember one friend who I read John's gospel with
a few years back,
who read it for four years.
And he struggled to get his head around this concept,
just couldn't quite get it.
And I remember him telling me
that not only did grace seem unfair to him,
but surely it took away,
rather incentivized,
any kind of desire to want to obey God
and live for him.
So that's what it means to live under grace.
You ever ask yourself those kind of questions?
How should I live?
In light of God's grace?
Well, look what Paul says,
writes rather at verse two, right?
So he's got that question,
he's pitched it at verse one.
Here's verse two.
What does he write?
Two words.
Absolutely not.
Or as quintessential Englishman J.B. Phillips
paraphrases it,
what a ghastly thought.
To which we all reply,
hear, hear, J.B.
What a ghastly thought.
And here's Paul's point.
If that's the difference that you think
God's grace to you in Jesus Christ
makes to your life,
then you have totally missed it.
And what he means is that
if we fully get the contours of chapter five,
if we understand grace
and the difference it makes to our lives,
then we'll understand that
this is something far bigger
that God declares to be true for us.
And something that God has pulled out
all the stops to do for us in our lives
is he's bought us for himself
and makes us his own in Jesus Christ.
Right, so this chapter is all about identity.
Sorry, the first half of chapter six.
Understanding your identity as a Christian.
Have you ever had that moment
when you're walking down the street
and you look at,
I mean, this has happened to us before,
you pass your favorite restaurant
that you used to go to a couple of years ago
and all of a sudden you see
things are different in the front.
Right, and those words at the top of it,
under new management.
You ever seen that before?
Under new management.
And you think to yourself,
ooh, I wonder what's going on here.
What's going on here?
What difference has this made?
Because there's new people in charge now.
Let's go and see.
Well, this is what Paul's declaring to be true
in this chapter of the Christian,
that the label above your life,
what it reads,
when you put your faith in Jesus Christ,
is you are under new management.
You're under new management.
That's what he's saying here.
If you're a Christian,
you're under new management.
This is what he's saying.
Have you put your faith in Jesus Christ?
Yep, I have.
Great.
Have you understood you're saved by grace
and not by works?
Yep.
That's wonderful.
Do you know what that makes you?
It makes you Jesuses.
Makes you his.
You're united to him.
That's what we were saying before.
Your life is caught with him.
And the key verse for us today is verse 11.
Verse 11,
here's what Paul wants them to understand.
Here's how Paul wants them to view themselves.
He wants them to understand themselves.
Verse 11,
in the same way,
count yourselves dead to sin,
but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
So do you see what he says?
He says count yourself,
consider yourself.
So this is how I want you to think of yourself.
You know,
that way you would do,
if you were doing,
I don't know,
some kind of planning in your life,
you would look at what's going on in your diary
and you would think about it
and you would think about,
yep,
that's what I'm doing this day.
That's what I'm doing this day.
You go to your wardrobe,
you look in your wardrobe
and you think to yourself,
that's me today.
That's me today.
This is what he's saying,
right?
Get your head around this.
This is who you are.
This is what's going on in your life.
Because we need to understand this,
first and foremost,
our identity in Jesus Christ
if we're to see the difference
that it should make to our lives.
I don't know if you've ever had that experience
of changing jobs.
And I predict that I remember going from working from,
a few years ago,
working from,
for one law firm
and I had one boss
tell me what to do every day,
giving me instructions
that I had no choice but to answer to
and do.
And then three weeks later,
I find myself working for another boss
down south in Bristol.
Another boss telling me what to do
and expecting me to do certain things
and saying,
hey,
you work for me now,
not that guy
he used to work for.
You ever had that kind of experience?
You go from,
maybe you're a student as well,
you found this with the person
who's overseeing your work,
you're a lecturer,
the term ends
and all of a sudden
you go into another year
and you start listening to another lecturer
who's telling you how to work.
This is what Paul is saying
has gone on here.
Right?
Pidge yourself in that situation.
You've changed your job.
You've located the stationary cupboard.
This isn't your first day.
You've located the stationary cupboard.
Your name's on the door.
You've clocked where the canteen is.
You know all the important stuff
when you start a new job.
And you've settled down at your desk
and you've opened up your emails
and you see in your emails
that there's an email there
from your previous boss.
And you're saying,
oh great,
how great to hear from them.
And you open this email
and it doesn't say,
listen,
just clocking in
to wish you all the best for the future.
Actually it says,
there's a piece of work
I want you to do
and it'd be great
if you could have it on my desk
for five o'clock on Friday
if that's okay.
How would you respond?
Surely you would think to yourself
when you say it,
we're English,
well it's not English,
we are British
and you would say it a lot more politely than this
but surely you would say on your bike mate,
not a chance.
Because that relationship has ended,
I don't work for you anymore,
I work for somebody else.
And that's exactly what Paul is saying
in this chapter.
That that relationship
we'll see with sin has been severed.
Its power over our lives has been severed.
We are dead to sin
and we are alive to God.
So let me just take those,
this is all we're going to do this morning,
we're going to think about
what it means to be dead to sin
and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
So let me just think about the first one here,
you're dead to sin.
Think about this,
you're dead to sin if you're a Christian
because before we were Christians,
you see sin was our master.
Look how Paul describes that,
verse six.
Sin, what did it do?
It ruled over us.
It mastered us.
It enslaved us.
So before we were Christians,
sin dictated our lives.
This is what it did.
It called the shots.
We just went our own way.
We weren't bothered about God's way.
You know, I was thinking about it this week,
before I was a Christian,
see if somebody had told me
that I was a sinner,
do you know what?
I would have laughed them down.
Laughed them down.
I had no idea,
I had no concept of what sin was.
I was just interested in me
and progressing my life.
I wasn't interested in God
and if truth be told,
what I thought was that God owed me
for how my life was going.
I didn't know him anything.
That's the very definition of sin, isn't it?
Going our own way,
going our own way,
pushing our own agenda
rather than submitting to our makers,
our creators.
You know, looking back at it now,
I had absolutely no idea
that I was like a dead fish
that was just flowing downstream.
So what is it about fish?
It's the alive ones
that's them upstream, isn't it?
I was a dead fish
that was flowing downstream.
But look what happened.
Verse 3, Christ died.
Somebody writes,
Christ died.
There's the fact.
Christ took the death
that my sin deserved,
that your sin deserved.
And when I put my faith in him
and I said,
Jesus, you're my saviour,
I need you,
that death,
his death,
became my death.
Do you see it?
Verse 6,
we were what?
Crucified with Christ.
And think about this.
If you want to understand it this way,
if sin's ultimate and final weapon
against you and I
because of a rebellion against God,
it's not just physical death,
but it's what the Bible calls
the second death.
It's the eternal death
when God judges the world
on that last day.
Friends, if my life is united to Jesus,
then that ultimate and final weapon
that sin has over me
is gone.
It's not a possibility anymore
because Jesus took that death.
It's not on the cards for me.
It's been totally disarmed.
And you see,
that death hasn't just affected,
sorry,
that death has affected my future,
but it's also affected my present.
You see how united to Jesus,
sin's power over me
has been decisively severed.
Verse 6,
look at the word he uses there.
It's what is powerless.
You see,
there's been a once and for all break.
The tense of that Greek word
is a complete one.
So this was a once in a lifetime
permanently established break
with sin
and its power over us.
That's what's happened
in Jesus Christ.
I love that great old hymn
that we sing,
Oh for a thousand tongues to sing.
What is it,
the line of that song?
He breaks the power
of cancelled sin.
The power of cancelled sin.
And he sets the prisoner free.
His blood can make
the foulest clean.
His blood,
it availed for me.
Or if you want a more modern song,
who breaks the power
of sin and darkness,
whose love is mighty
and so much stronger,
the king of glory,
the king above all kings.
We celebrate this truth
that Jesus Christ
has severed
the ties that sin has with us.
It's mastery over us.
So what that means for us
is now that we're united
to Jesus as Christians,
sin can shout all at once,
it can bark orders at us,
it can send us
an email with detailed
instructions on it
about what it wants us to do,
our flesh.
But now,
we have the power,
because the Holy Spirit
lives in us,
of saying,
I don't answer to you anymore
on your bike mate.
Now of course,
we have to understand
that doesn't mean
we'll be perfect in this life
and we'll see that
in the next chapter.
This is a daily battle,
even a losing one sometimes,
with sin,
as we still grapple
with this flesh.
And I want to encourage you
today that if you find
yourself in that battle
with sin,
if you think,
why is this such a struggle?
I want to encourage you
that that is a sign of faith,
of living faith,
and not of failure.
Because this wasn't true for you,
you wouldn't be fighting it.
If God had opened your eyes,
if you weren't like fish
swimming upstream,
you wouldn't be fighting it.
You should take courage
from that.
Jesus has broken the power
of sin and darkness.
This is what he's done
for me,
for you,
that we can choose now
to say no to sin
and we want to worship God.
I'm dead to sin.
That's how Paul is saying
to think of yourself.
You're dead to sin.
You've got a new master now.
That tie has been severed.
And your new master,
you need to understand,
is the best boss
you could ever serve.
He is the best master,
Jesus Christ,
one who has so lovingly
given his life for you,
a one who has so graciously
wooed you to himself,
wooed you to himself
and says,
come and follow me.
Come and serve me.
That's what Paul means
when he writes
in the other half
of verse 11,
what are we?
We are alive to God.
Alive to God.
You see,
you're not just united
to him in his death
if you're a Christian.
You're united to him
in his life,
in his resurrection.
Get your head around that one.
I am raised,
verse 4,
do you see the language?
So important,
we see his language,
what's he saying?
I am raised to what?
Wander about my own?
No,
I am raised to walk
in the newness of life.
I'm spiritually experiencing
that life now
and I will physically
experience that life
one day
when Jesus gloriously
returns.
See,
friends,
his life changes
the future.
That resurrection,
we're united to that.
It changes the future.
I'm sticking with
the Bond theme.
You know,
one of the earliest films
was called
You Only Live Twice.
Never watched that
Bond film?
You Only Live Twice.
What Paul is saying
is true for the Christian,
which is not true
for the non-Christian,
is that in Jesus,
friends,
flip it around,
we will only die once.
So what are you saying?
We're only going to die once.
I don't know if you saw
in the news recently
that a recently married
Christian couple
from London
who tragically died
in Santorini in Greece
a few months ago.
Anybody see that in the news?
It's all over the BBC News.
Well,
they had their joint funeral
this week
down in Kennington
in London.
1,200 people turned up
for that funeral.
And this week,
I met up with one of my
good friends who was
called Hamish.
And unknown to me
as I was chatting with him,
it turned out that he
spoke at that funeral.
I said,
what on earth did you say?
Where do you go
with 1,200 people
mourning for a loss
of two wonderful individuals?
And he said to me,
do you know what,
there was only one place
I could go.
Only one place I could go.
And that was to
John chapter 11.
And the words of Jesus
to Martha
is she's,
before Jesus has raised
Lazarus from the dead,
is she's mourning
for the loss of her brother.
She's in tears,
is she's devastated
for the loss of her brother.
And Jesus says
those words
to Mary,
I am the resurrection
and the life.
And the one who believes
in me will live,
even though they die.
And whoever lives
by believing in me
will never die.
You see,
united to Jesus
in his resurrection,
what a wonderful,
comforting truth
for the future.
That we will only
die once.
Our lives are his.
In fact,
I've walked with many of you
through many of these
periods in your life.
And those words
of Jesus
have so much power.
And I pray,
and I've been praying
this week,
that for many of us,
these words of his
would be timely
refreshment to our souls.
I am the resurrection
and life.
Your life is safe
with me
because I bought it.
I bought it
with my blood.
So wonderfully
liberating
for the future,
but friends,
it is so wonderfully
freeing
for the present.
You see,
God hasn't just
saved us
from something.
God has saved us
by his grace
for something.
In other words,
he hasn't called us out.
He hasn't saved us.
And he's saying,
you're free to wander.
You're free to go.
Do what you please
and just send me
a postcard once in a while.
He's not said that.
He's called us out
not to be wanderers.
He's called us out
to be worshippers.
To be part of his people
who are from every tribe
and from every tongue
and from every nation.
This wonderful multitude
from across the world
down the generations
that he's gathering
to himself
to be,
as Peter says
in 1 Peter chapter 1,
a royal priesthood,
a holy nation
and a people
who make it
their life's ambition
to proclaim
the praises
of the one
who called them
out of darkness
into his wonderful light.
That is what God is doing.
That is what God
is doing today.
That is what God
was doing yesterday.
That is what God
will do tomorrow
and for the rest
of our lives.
The lives
until he comes,
Jesus comes
and winds this world up.
You see,
in light of that
second half of verse 13,
once you understand
what God is doing,
it's so much bigger
than us,
it's so much bigger
than the age 10,
it's something he's doing
across the world
when you understand that.
Do you see what he says
halfway through verse 13?
Look at his appeal.
He says what?
He says,
offer all parts of you.
Do you see it?
All parts of you.
Love that phrase.
Do you not?
Get that.
Your eyes,
your ears,
your hands,
your feet,
your mind,
your will,
all of you.
Offer it,
all of you.
As what?
And get your head
around this phrase.
I mean,
here should be the phrase
that stays from this passage,
right?
Offer yourselves as what?
As instruments
of righteousness.
Instruments of righteousness.
Now here's the cool bit
that I found out this week.
See that word
instruments in the Greek,
it can almost be translated
weapon,
weapon.
Some of your translations
here this morning
might even say that word,
weapon,
mine does,
as weapons of righteousness.
Love that thought.
See,
what God is doing
through us
as his saved people
is making an impact
on this world
as we live dangerously
different lives
for his kingdom.
God glorifying lives
in this world.
And it's,
we are the means
through whom
God reaches
the people
of this world.
As we live our lives
giving ourselves
as instruments,
weapons
to righteousness.
Isn't that a wonderful thought?
Wonderful thought.
You know,
I was lucky enough
to attend a meal
last night.
Corey and Jonathan
invited me to this meal.
There's certain perks
of this job,
I tell you.
Invited me to this meal
to celebrate
the 10th anniversary
of the work
of street pastors
in Edinburgh.
After a wonderful evening,
I was blown away
by what God is doing
in this city.
Blown away
by the many people
he has in this city.
It shouldn't have surprised me,
but it did.
And one of the guests
that he invited along
to say a few words
was the chief superintendent
of Edinburgh police.
And she spoke for 10 minutes,
cracked a few funnies,
what not,
but she delivered
some wonderful truths
about how she perceives
the work of street pastors.
And basically,
the essence of her message
was to the team,
thank you.
Thank you for what you do.
Thank you for complimenting
the work of the police.
Thank you for being a blessing
to our city.
And thank you for loving
our people.
Loving our people.
And she said particularly,
and this is just the statistics
for what those guys
are doing,
the work.
She said,
thank you on behalf
of the 297 vulnerable people
who you supported.
Thank you so much
for the 78 aggressive situations
that you guys managed
to diffuse,
which otherwise
would have led to crime.
Thank you so much
for the,
I love this one,
5,374 lollipops
you handed out
to make sure people
had a good time
Friday and Saturday night
in our city.
As you see,
offer yourselves
as instruments
as weapons
to righteousness.
Isn't that a wonderful
testimony of something
what God is doing
in this city?
I know there's many,
many different organizations
who are doing similar things.
But we want to be a blessing
to this city,
don't we?
We want to be a blessing
to the people.
We want to care for people,
love people.
Because the gospel is holistic,
isn't it?
Of word and deed.
And we want to be people
who,
as people would look into
what we're doing,
they would say,
thank you that you guys exist.
I'm so glad.
I would be devastated
if you moved on.
Offer your bodies
as instruments
to righteousness.
Here is Paul taking
the theology
of who we are,
our identity in Christ,
and he is saying,
here is how it should
outwork in your life.
Weapons
to righteousness.
See,
as we bring it to a close,
God is saying
through his word,
understand who you are.
Understand that you are
united to Jesus
in his death.
And understand that you are
united to Jesus
in his resurrection.
And understand that I have
called you out of darkness.
And I've called you
to be part of my people.
I've called you into my light.
And what I've called,
and we saw this last week
with Adam,
if you were here,
why did God do this?
What is God doing?
He has made us in his image.
The one that sin
entered through Adam
affected all of us.
The one that,
that image sin
is distorted.
And God has saved us
to bear that image
once again
in our lives
as we live our lives
in worship
of our creator God.
And I love it,
our Presbyterian brothers
and sisters,
dear friends,
they write this
in the Westminster
Shorter Catechism.
Let me get my geek on
for a minute, okay?
Question one.
What is the chief end of man?
Why are we here?
What do we exist for?
That's the question.
How would you answer
that question?
They answer it.
Man's chief end
is to glorify God
and to enjoy him forever.
That's why we exist.
That's why we're here.
That's what's going on.
That's what being a Christian
is all about.
And all of that
symbolized in baptism.
Do you see that?
All symbolized in baptism.
Come on, as a Baptist,
you wouldn't let me,
you wouldn't think
I'd be leaving that part,
would you?
All symbolized by baptism.
That's what Paul points out here.
Think of your baptism.
Think what went on.
And if you were here
a few weeks ago
when Pete was baptized,
Pete and Garrett,
you'll realize that
Pete wanted those verses
read out at his baptism.
1 to 14, chapter 6.
It's almost like he was saying,
I've come to a point in my life
where I know this
to be true of me.
I'm living this.
This is me.
And so he wanted Romans 6
read out as baptism.
And I didn't understand it,
I'll be honest,
three weeks ago.
And so you haven't studied
the passage this week?
Oh, I totally get it.
Totally get it.
This is what went on at baptism.
We died.
We died with Christ.
And we raised with him
in his resurrection life.
Baptism is almost like saying,
that's true for me.
That's what's going on
in my life and my heart.
You know, it's funny,
I heard a joke about
a minister this week,
it actually happened,
I think,
who at baptism kept
the person who's been
baptized underwater
for just a little bit
too long, right?
Made everyone in the congregation
feel really uncomfortable
with what was going on
before he raised them out
and he lifted them
as high as he could.
As a way of kind of
helping them see
and everybody there
see the reality
of what was going on.
You're dead to sin
and you're alive to God
in Christ Jesus.
And maybe if that's true
for you this morning
or you think I want to
investigate that a bit further,
what's that all about?
Then can I encourage you
to chat to somebody
and if you think,
do you know what,
that has happened to me.
Friends, can I encourage you
to come and get baptized?
Tell the world,
this is what's going on
in my life,
that's what God has done.
Because Paul says
in the same way,
count yourselves
dead to sin, right?
The old you,
that's gone,
dead to sin
and alive to God
in Christ Jesus.
So flip back to James Bond
in your mind.
This is where we started,
James Bond.
What does living by
in God's grace mean?
I mean, does that mean
that I have license to sin?
Am I in the same category
as James Bond?
Am I free to do what I want
but I'm covered?
What's going on?
Well, just see how Paul
has logically helped them
see that if you think that,
friends, you've totally missed it.
Because if by God's grace
we are Jesus's,
you understand his logic?
If we're Jesus's,
then to run back
to our old masters,
to run back
to how we used to live,
it doesn't make any sense at all.
Grace isn't a license
to sin, friends.
It's a license to serve.
To serve the God
who saved us,
who called us out of darkness
into his glorious light.
Take my life
and let it be
consecrated, Lord,
to thee.
Take my moments
and my days
and let them flow
in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands
and let them move
at the impulse
of thy love.
And take my feet
and let them be
swift
and beautiful
for thee.
This is the difference
that the risen Jesus Christ
makes to our life.
Praise God for his grace.
and let's go.
Thank you.
So,
let's go to bed.